


Daddy's Eyes

by Nomad (nomadicwriter)



Category: West Wing - Fandom
Genre: Alcoholism, Angst, Character Study, Gen, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-12-03
Updated: 2001-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 14:58:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomadicwriter/pseuds/Nomad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo, post-"War Crimes"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daddy's Eyes

**Spoilers**: Brief references to The Short List, Take Out the Trash Day, The Portland Trip, War Crimes.  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own the West Wing. Those of you who've read my "Donna the Vampire Slayer" crossover series will agree that this is probably a good thing.  


* * *

  


> _Don't you know you've got your daddy's eyes?  
> Daddy was an alcoholic  
> But your mother kept it all inside  
> Threw it all away..._

He looks in the mirror, but the eyes don't belong to him anymore. Clouded and so very, very old, these aren't the flashing eyes of the White House Chief of staff. These aren't the eyes that twinkle above a half-hidden smirk when he jokes with the man he no longer calls 'Jed' anywhere but in his head.

Oh, these are eyes he knows only too well.

_So much like your father. You've always been so much like your father._

He's always been so much like his father. He _is_ just like his father.

No matter how far or how fast he tries to run from it, he never escapes. How can you escape something that's inside you? How can you run away from something that stares out at you from the mirror? Those eyes. Those eyes that always made him feel sick and weak and lost, those eyes that don't make him feel any different when he sees them staring out of his own face.

Once, when he was young, he wondered sometimes what had gone on behind those stormy eyes. What had it been, that feeling, that final feeling that had ended with the garage and the pistol and the smell of blood and gunpowder. Where that darkness, that pure, incomprehensible darkness, could have sprung from, how it could have grown so huge.

He hasn't been that young in a long long time.

Once, he swore that he would never go down that path, he would never lose himself. He would never be his father's shadow. Once, he'd fought to prove that he was stronger. He would face the demon bottle on his own, and he would win.

He'd been wrong.

Once, he swore that he would love his wife and family with all his heart and soul. That he would give them everything they deserved, and they would always, always, always come first.

And he'd been wrong.

Once, he swore the vow above all other vows. Once he swore that no matter how far and how badly he fell, no matter how much he crashed and burned and imploded and destroyed himself, he would never, never, _never_ harm an innocent.

And he'd been wrong. He'd been wrong for thirty years, and never known it.

_I didn't know, I didn't know, I didn't_ know-

His father had never known, either. He was always drunk. He hadn't known what he was doing, and then he was always so apologetic, after.

After doesn't count. After doesn't make it better. After is too late to make it better. He looks in the mirror, and he sees his fathers eyes.

He hears the shouts and the silence and the hollow boom of a single echoing gunshot.

He smells sawdust, blood and gunpowder, and he can taste the barrel of the pistol in his mouth.

It tastes a lot like whiskey.

> _I was looking for another you  
> And I found another one  
> I was looking for another you  
> When I looked round, you were gone_  
> \- Starsailor, "Alcoholic"


End file.
